A man in northwestern Pakistan was arrested for allegedly insulting the Quran during a heated argument after police were alerted that an angry mob wanted to lynch the suspect.
"Pakistan: People have gathered outside Khazana District Peshawar police station, demanding that the police hand over an individual arrested for blasphemy. Pakistan has become a breeding ground for radical extremism where violent mobs can hold the entire country hostage."
~… pic.twitter.com/iitMGLJ5Ep— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) November 20, 2024
The man, identified as Humayun Ullah, was arrested in Khazana on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital city of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to police officer Nasir Khan.
Khan said police arrested Ullah as a mob was trying to grab and lynch him in the street. A video posted on social media shows hundreds of people blocking a road near a police station and demanding the man be handed over to them. Gunshots were also heard near the station, where the man was being held for questioning.
The police officer also said the man allegedly made derogatory remarks about the Quran during a heated argument with his brother at the family’s home. Khan said some of the demonstrators pelted stones at the police station and threatened to burn the station down and harm officers if they did not hand the man over to them.
I suspect those idiots boast to one another when the lynch the accused. They likely share tales and attempt to outdo each other in a quest to hunt down blasphemers. The more enthusiastic they are the more they feel Allah will look kindly upon them.
— Quadratica (@Quadratica87928) November 20, 2024
Under Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam, the Quran, or religious figures can be sentenced to death. However, authorities in Pakistan have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy.
The arrest came after a teenager accused of killing a 57-year-old Pakistani-American man back in July 2020 was sentenced to life in prison and a hefty fine of a million Pakistani rupees (equivalent to 3,600 US dollars) by an anti-terrorism court in Peshawar.
The killer was arrested in 2020 after he entered a courtroom where the man was being held and shot him at point-blank range. Many religious fundamentalists, including clerics and local politicians, held him as a hero, and many lawyers even offered to defend him for free when he was arrested.
